Top Gear has had a year off - but it’s successfully back with the same old and
wonderfully comforting routine, writes Alice Vincent.

As Jeremy Clarkson explained on Twitter, “fat people singing” have been in Top Gear’s way for the past year. So it’s ironic that the programme’s return opened with the portly presenter screeching “we’re back!” with all the enthusiasm of a desperate X Factor finalist. This is where similarities between padded-out talent contests and Top Gear end, however - the free-wheeling motoring show was very nearly a full hour of witty entertainment.

Top Gear’s fans were deprived of a Christmas special after 2011’s festivity; an overgrown-schoolboy mission to India to promote the virtues of its former colonisers was officially complained about by the Indian High Commission. Jokes about terrorism, the Nazi regime and incest in tonight’s episode suggest Top Gear’s tone remained unchanged by such nay-sayers.

Also woefully reminiscent was the banter between Top Gear trio Richard Hammond, May and Clarkson - May was old, Hammond’s attire was laughable, Clarkson moaned about motorway signs. Rinse, repeat. A lively interjection from Homeland’s ‘Star In A Reasonably Priced Car’ Damian Lewis, who dropped names and manly accolades (playing at Old Trafford, surviving a motorcycle accident) with genuine humour was much-needed.

Top Gear thrived outside of its dingy studio. We saw Hammond yell theatrically inside a “savage” steampunk supercar: the Pagani Huayra is worth £800,000 and a place at the top of the Power Lap Board - which set the bar high for the rest of the series.

Eagle-eyed fans will have seen September’s leaked footage of May co-driving a Bentley continental GT Speed on a WRC rally stage. Tonight’s full feature was one of dramatic skies, dark forests and a tough lesson for him in car algebra (rally pacenotes: directions given in hasty anticipation to the driver). “Either get it right or shut up”, growled Kris Meeke, May’s quietly, terrifyingly authoritative professional driver. Satisfyingly, the Bentley’s four-wheel drive dealt well with a proper thrashing.

Clarkson debuted his self-created ‘P45’. The vehicle (it can hardly be called a car) aims to be smaller than the Peel P50 - a 1960s micromobile invented for city driving. Clarkson, just shy of two metres tall, was transformed into a grumpy Lego robot in the contraption, pootling along country lanes, bombing down dual carriageways and sneaking into shopping centres with slapstick hilarity.

Add in predictable asides at cyclists and gay men and Top Gear was the same as it’s always been - an hour of surprisingly comforting Dad Jokes and serious cars on a dark Sunday night.